


The Other Gift of Life

by nacimynom



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Drama, Family, Family Dynamics, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Medical
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 04:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nacimynom/pseuds/nacimynom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Sheppard is recovering from being stabbed in the abdomen by the alien entity that had taken over Jennifer Keller's body in "The Seed" season 5 episode. He receives an urgent message from Earth. It's about his brother Dave. This is the extended version of a story I wrote for the 2014 Sheppard H/C Winter Fic Challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some background material is from the "Sateda" episode. Parts of John’s backstory are based on and borrowed from Jo Graham’s excellent "Death Game" SGA novel. 
> 
> Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis is not mine. I wrote this story for fun not profit.
> 
> Acknowledgements: Thank you to amycat8733 and firedew for being my wonderful beta readers, and to roo1965 for the great prompt. All mistakes are mine.
> 
> This story is dedicated to Amy.

Every moment had been passing by excruciatingly slowly the entire week since Keller released John from the infirmary. He had spent most of the time sleeping and dozing while trying to make headway through his well beaten copy of War and Peace. Despite all his due diligence, it still hurt to breathe and do most things he enjoyed doing.

Being shish kabobed by an alien’s tentacle caused more pain and damage than being perforated by falling rebar. Go figure. Two more items to add to his ever lengthening list of Not to Do Things: Avoid buildings that are about to explode; Stay out of reach of giant tendrils. The newest, not so simple lessons that he had learned in the past month.

Besides being sick and tired of feeling like crap, he was bored to tears. He couldn’t practice his golf swing and even putting hurt, unless he did it with one hand. But that was just bad form. He was on the verge of begging Keller to clear him for desk duty. At this point, even a couple of hours of paperwork sounded interesting.

The comm that had been sitting silently on his night table for way too long, buzzed. He plucked it off and stuck it in his ear.

“Colonel Sheppard?” Banks said.

“Sheppard here. What’s up?”

“Sir, a secure message just came through for you in the latest transmission burst from Stargate Command. I just forwarded it to your account.”

“Thanks, Amelia.”

John gingerly stood up from the bed and moved to his desk to turn on his computer. While the laptop fired up, he stared out the window. It was a beautiful sunny day, the foamy white caps of the waves were a sure sign of a steady southwest wind stronger than the previous day’s light breeze. All the colors on this planet were deeper and brighter than on Earth. The surf might be up at that beach he had spotted a month back but never had a chance to visit. The desperate search for Teyla, accidentally traveling forty eight thousand years to the future, dealing with Michael and with alien entities trying to take over Atlantis, and nearly dying twice (or was it three times?) sure kept a guy too busy for hobbies. And now that he had the time for R&R, he wasn’t physically fit enough to enjoy it. Maybe he should sit on the pier and pretend to fish. That would kill a couple of hours.

He called up his email program. Before he opened up the message, he noticed the sender. It was his ex-wife, Nancy. The last time he had seen her was in Washington D.C. a couple of days after his father’s funeral, when she had given him all the information she could find on the Archetype replicator project. She had done him a huge favor and he had told her he owed her one. Had she contacted him because she wanted to cash in her chips? Not that he was in any position to do favors for anyone on Earth from here in Atlantis.

He reread the message twice before he grasped how off-base his guess was. A sense of dread sunk in his stomach as he mentally apologized to Nancy for thinking anything negative about her motives. He snapped the laptop shut and left his room as quickly as he could manage without pulling at the healing abdominal wound. Keller had removed the sutures only the day before and she had warned him not to do anything to ruin her work.

A couple of minutes later he knocked at the open office door to attract the attention of the bald man who was busy plucking away at the computer keyboard. If it would have ever occurred to him to ponder about it, John would definitely have pegged him as someone who could touch type and do it that fast. “Mr. Woolsey, do you have a minute?”

“Certainly, Colonel Sheppard, do come in.” Woolsey waved him toward one of the two chairs positioned in front of his desk. “This is not about your return to duty is it? I have not yet received your clearance form from Dr. Keller.”

“No, no it’s not that.” John sat down, his brain suddenly slammed by a memory of Carter telling him that his father had passed away from a heart attack. It had only been eight months ago. This could not be happening again. “I just got word that my brother is very sick. He’s in a hospital … they don’t know if he is going to make it. I need to request some leave.”

One thing that had to be said about Woolsey: he was quick on the uptake. “I am so sorry. I understand that you must go, but …”

John didn’t let him finish. “Work-wise it shouldn’t be a problem since as you know, I’m still off duty.”

“Yes, of course you are.” Woolsey didn’t seem ruffled by the interruption. “What I wanted to say is that I only need you to get Dr. Keller’s clearance to travel before I will okay the emergency dial-up to Earth.”

“Oh, that’s fine. I’ll go see her now. Thank you.” He stood up, already calculating how long it would take him to talk to Keller, Lorne, and his own team, before he could rush back to his quarters and pack up a few things to get ready to go.

“I very much hope that your brother pulls through,” Woolsey said.

“Me too. I’ll keep you posted.” John walked out of the office and headed to the infirmary.

Keller was very sympathetic and efficient in her assessment. While she finished his workup and updated the electronic medical file that would accompany him to Stargate Command, she had Marie prepare a supply of his pain meds and antibiotics, and a long list of instructions on wound care, diet, and do’s and don’ts. He was out of there within fifteen minutes.

He went to see Teyla next. She was easy to find these days because she spent a lot of time in her quarters dealing with motherhood and all that messy newborn baby stuff. John still couldn’t quite believe that she had named her baby partly after him. Torren John. He was honored and a tad confused given the weird feelings he had been suppressing about her ever since she told him that she was pregnant with Kanaan’s kid.

He rang the chime. The door slid open to reveal Ronon cradling the sleeping baby like an expert. The temptation to tease his teammate passed immediately and not because of the glare Ronon gave him as a warning. Truthfully, John was a little jealous. While he recuperated from the rebar and then the tentacle skewering, he hadn’t had much of a chance to hold the little kid (practically his namesake) since he flew him to Atlantis on the Wraith Dart. He had been so fragile then, a little boneless heap that barely weighed anything. No matter how well he had studied all the little parts he could see of the baby (Darts are easy to fly and he had to find a way to stay awake)—tiny hands, squished face with miniscule but perfect features—John had been unable to figure out if he looked like Teyla or the father (he didn’t really like to even think of his name). To be honest, he preferred to ignore Kanaan’s contribution to Torren’s gene pool.

He still felt pretty smug that Torren had peacefully slept through the whole flight. The baby woke up only when Ronon handed him off to Rodney so that he could help John get out of the Dart.

“I’m giving Teyla a break. They had a rough night. She’s in the shower.” Ronon’s voice was still raspy from his encounter with the strangulating alien tentacles. A bruised larynx, Keller had said. At least he could talk now. Jokes aside, John definitely had noticed the difference between a regular non-talkative Ronon and a completely mute Ronon. Subtle but real.

“How’s the throat?” John stepped into the room. He noticed the scattered Athosian and Earth-made baby things overlaying Teyla’s usually tidy decor.

“Better.” Ronon gave him one of those trademark assessing looks. The guy might not say much, but he missed nothing. “What’s wrong?”

“I just got word that my brother is very sick.”

That was when Teyla came out of her bedroom. Hair carefully combed but still damp, she wore a three-quarter sleeve tunic with decorative laces in the front over one of her many pairs of form fitting pants. She looked refreshed, but there was still that frazzled edge she had these days, a little tired looking and slightly less composed than her usual self—something that only her closest friends would recognize. And John counted himself among them, nothing more.

“Hello, John,” she said. “Thank you, Ronon. That felt wonderful. I will take Torren now.”

“It’s alright. I don’t mind holding him if you have other stuff to do,” Ronon said. His big hand gently rubbed the baby’s back.

Teyla nodded in gratitude. She started tidying up the room. “John, I heard you talking with Ronon. What is the matter with Dave?” she asked.

“I don’t know any details. My ex, Nancy, sent me a message saying that he’s in critical condition in the hospital. His fiancé asked her to contact me.” Dave hadn’t mentioned a girlfriend in the few emails they had exchanged since the more or less friendly conversation they had at his house after he dropped by to see him following the replicator caper. Things had definitely thawed between them, but it wasn’t as if they had morphed into pen pals. Interpersonal communication was not a forte of the Sheppard brothers, a characteristic they had surely inherited from their father.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” said Teyla. “Will you go see him?”

“Yeah, I’m going to Earth as soon as I pack a few things. Woolsey okayed it,” John said. He didn’t know if he had the energy to do this. He had been functioning on overdrive for so long, battling one emergency after another for months (or was it years?) in Atlantis and the last couple of injuries had taken quite a toll on him, physically and mentally. He was used to action, facing a problem and coming up with a plan—admittedly not always a good one—to solve it. What could he possibly do for Dave? Sit there, pat his hand and watch him die? Without a doubt he had to go, but he dreaded witnessing what might happen and being helpless to stop it. If he had only requested some leave right after Keller released him from the infirmary, he might have been able to spend time with Dave before, before whatever it was that happened to him happened. John had been estranged from his father for so long that he had been  surprised at how hard it had hit him when he died. The thought that he might lose Dave too, without a chance to not only completely clear the waters between them but also just to hang out and catch up, was devastating.

“Are you well enough to travel, John?” asked Teyla.

“I’m fine. Keller checked me out. She gave me my meds and excruciatingly detailed instructions,” he said.

“Good. Please do make sure to abide by them. I know that you are very worried about your brother, but you must take care of yourself too. You need to give yourself time to complete your recovery,” she said.

“I will. Don’t worry.” He accompanied the words with one of his trademark confident smiles, even if it was smaller than usual.

“I’ll go with you,” Ronon said. “I’ll meet you at the gate in fifteen.”

“I appreciate it, buddy. But you don’t have to,” John said.

“I want to. I’m bored being off duty and the food on Earth is good.”

“Ronon, that is an excellent idea,” Teyla said. She took Torren from Ronon and he quickly left the room, not giving John a chance to argue with him.

John made to follow in his trail. Teyla intercepted him with a light touch to his shoulder. He inclined his head to meet hers in the Athosian greeting. He absorbed the quiet moment and the lovely scent that was Teyla. It felt as if she were transmitting to him some of her inner peace and steadiness. Good thing, because in his frantic rush he had almost forgotten something.

“Teyla, will you tell McKay what happened? He and Zelenka pulled an all-nighter to run some supposedly amazing experiment and he crashed just a couple of hours ago. I don’t have the guts or the time to wake him.”

“Certainly, I will talk to him and make him understand.” The baby had started to fuss so she switched her hold and began to lightly bounce him.

“Thanks, Teyla.”

“John, you and your brother will be in my thoughts. I truly hope that his situation is not as dire as it sounds. When you have the time, please send a message to Rodney and me to apprise us of the situation.”

“Okay. Bye, Torren. Try to let your mom sleep once in a while.” He gently patted the baby’s head and left.


	2. Chapter 2

Ronon adjusted the volume control on his headset. The sound level had shot up when the snakes first made their appearance. He didn’t want Sheppard to be startled awake by the very authentic sounding screams of the passengers in the movie, which was unimaginatively called _Snakes on a Plane_.

Judging by how quickly Sheppard had passed out half an hour earlier, this was probably the first stretch of decent sleep he’d mustered since they walked through the Atlantis stargate over a day before. Ronon himself had slept through a big chunk of the down time they had at Stargate Command while they waited for the accelerated period of quarantine to go by and their paperwork to clear through the proper channels. Whatever they were. He had no interest in sightseeing at Cheyenne Mountain; he had seen way too much of the base last year, when he and Teal’c had scoured the place clean from the Wraith incursion. Windowless, underground places creeped him out. Something he had never told anybody except Melena.

Ronon adjusted the footrest. For both selfish and unselfish reasons, he was glad that John had paid for the roomier business class seats. After the meal, he had walked the entire length of the plane to stretch his legs. The rear seats were made for Teyla-sized people. There was no way Sheppard would have been able to rest back there. The man had run himself ragged for a couple of months while they searched for Teyla, and then he’d gotten hurt twice in too short a span of time. And now the stuff with his brother. Back in Atlantis, with a wordless shared look, Ronon and Teyla had been on the same wavelength when he had volunteered to tag along. He would make sure Sheppard took care of himself, even if he had to lock him in his room or slip him extra pain meds. To that end, Keller had called him on the comm to give him a few Shep-handling suggestions before the two of them left Atlantis.

He smothered another guffaw. The passengers in the movie tried and failed to create a barricade with piles of luggage taken from the overhead compartments. More shrieks and agonized screams accompanied the snakes’ assault. The creativity of Sheppard’s people continued to amaze him.

He felt the presence of the perky woman standing next to him before she spoke. She had responded very quickly after he had pressed the service button. He lifted one side of the head phones off his ear.

“I can’t believe they are showing that movie on a flight,” she said.

Ronon grinned at her. “It’s very funny.”

“I don’t think it was meant to be a comedy. How can I help you, sir?”

“Another beer, please.”

“I will bring it back in a moment. Enjoy your movie.”

“Thanks.”

Fully aware that the rest of the trip would have a much more serious tone, Ronon was determined to relax during the flight. So he partook in more beer, assorted snacks, and another movie until the pre-landing announcements shut down his entertainment and woke up Sheppard. The man carelessly ran his fingers through his hair and then pulled up the window shade. Both of them took in the sweeping view of the landing approach. The glistening waters of the harbor and the city skyline were pretty.

“So that’s Baltimore?” Ronon asked.

“Yup. It’s not as big as Washington, D.C.” Before they left SGC, Sheppard had shown him their location on a map of the continent.

“Is that an ocean?”

“It’s Chesapeake Bay which leads into the Atlantic Ocean,” Sheppard said. “My brother and I used to go sailing in the bay with my mom.”

Ronon had not expected that tidbit of personal information. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever heard him speak about his mother before. The longing in his friend’s voice stopped him from asking any questions.

As soon as the plane landed, Sheppard turned on the cellphone he had picked up at SGC and placed a call to Nancy. The side of the conversation Ronon heard didn’t sound at all promising.

Sheppard sighed as he slipped the phone back in his pocket. At least he looked a little more rested than he had been at the start of the flight. The dark smudges under his eyes had lightened up a bit.

“Bad, huh?” Ronon said.

“His liver is failing. They don’t know why. Nancy arranged for my brother’s company to send a car for us so that we don’t have to wait for a taxi.”

“Good.”

“I guess,” he said. “You don’t have to come to the hospital, you know. The harbor front in Baltimore is nice. Lots of restaurants and there is a great aquarium.”

Ronon had been wondering when he was going to start up with that again. “I’m coming with you.”

Sheppard glared as if expecting him to elaborate. Instead, he just stared right back at him, two stubborn men trying to outdo each other.

“Okay,” Sheppard finally said.

While their plane slowly rolled to the terminal, Ronon watched the others that were lined up like giant birds next to the long building. The planes were so graceful in the air and so clumsy on land. Their sleek design made the Atlantis jumpers look like a child’s drawing. It was funny though that the boxy jumpers were eons ahead of these Earth airplane in terms of functionality and technology. Did the Ancients worry more about functionality than esthetics, or was their technical knowledge so advanced to make irrelevant the normal laws of aerodynamics and other principles of physics? McKay would be shocked into silence if Ronon ever started talking to him about these things. He tended to have preconceived notions about people’s physical and intellectual abilities. To Ronon’s knowledge, Samantha Carter and Sheppard were the only two people who had overcome McKay’s ingrained prejudices. Maybe one day soon, Ronon would let him discover the brains behind his brawn. It would be fun to see McKay sputter when faced by another one of his errors in judgment.

A little over an hour later, the long dark blue car dropped them off in front of the hospital. It was late afternoon and Sheppard hadn’t wanted to stop by the hotel first. The driver of the car gave each of them a card with his name and telephone number. He would hold on to their meager luggage and they were supposed to call him when they were ready to leave.

“What’s this place called again?”

“Johns Hopkins.”

That’s what he thought, but he wanted to make sure that he hadn’t misread the large sign above the entrance to the grandiose lobby. Ronon had gotten pretty good at reading English from his years in Atlantis, but he had never seen Sheppard’s first name spelled with an “s” before. What a weird language. The grammar was much simpler than Satedan, but reading and spelling were truly whacko.

They walked up to a long desk.

“Hi, I’m  John Sheppard. I’m here to visit a patient, Dave Sheppard. He’s my brother.” Sheppard handed over his ID card to the woman at the counter.

“One moment please.” She barely looked up from the computer screen. “Mr. David Sheppard is in the medical intensive care unit, the MICU. Tenth floor. You will have to talk to someone at a nurse’s station there for more information.”

Ronon gave to the woman the ID card General Jack O’Neill had procured for him to travel in their country. He pointed at Sheppard and said, “I’m with him.”

The woman gave him a long appraising look. “I am sorry, sir, but only relatives are allowed access to ICU and MICU floors.”

Ronon placed his arm on the counter top and flashed the official-looking metal badge that O’Neill had given him. “I’m Colonel John Sheppard’s personal bodyguard. I’ve got strict orders to go where he goes. It’s a matter of national security.”

Unperturbed by Sheppard’s quizzical expression, Ronon maintained his no nonsense posture. He didn’t crack a smile.

The woman’s eyes widened in surprise as she examined the badge and accompanying paper. “Oh, I am sorry, sir. Please wait a moment and I will have your visitor IDs ready.”

Ronon mimicked Sheppard’s motions to peel off the backing from the piece of paper she handed to him and adhered the sticky rectangle to his shirt.

No one else entered the elevator with them. Before Sheppard pressed the number ten button on the control panel, he turned to him with an exasperated face. “What the hell, Ronon. Bodyguard?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it did. But,” Sheppard lost the drive to protest. “What gave you the idea?”

“Jennifer made me watch that sappy movie a couple of days ago, when I still wasn’t allowed to speak. I couldn’t stop her.”

“What sappy movie?”

“You know the one with the bodyguard and the hot singer. And there was a bodyguard in the snake plane movie I saw today.” He expected Sheppard to make a sarcastic comment about his movie selections.

Sheppard didn’t take the bait. “I don’t need a bodyguard to follow me when I visit my brother in the hospital.”

“Don’t be so sure about that. Earth seems like a pretty dangerous place to me,” Ronon said. “And once he stopped laughing, O’Neill agreed that it was a good idea. He said something about your history.”

“National security?”

“That’s all O’Neill.”

“Fine, but don’t throw yourself in front of a bullet because of me.”

“Okay,” Ronon said, but of course he would do it and Sheppard would do the same for him if the bullet, stunner blast, or whatever was headed his way. Ditto with Teyla and even Rodney would, if he could think of it quickly enough. That’s what they did for each other. “But what if it’s a snake?”

Sheppard just ignored him. Ronon noticed the faintest upturn to the edges of his mouth. It flat lined as soon as they stepped out of the elevator. They followed the signs to the right pointing to the MICU.

As they walked down the aseptically clean hallway the smell almost overwhelmed him. Memories of Melena’s last day hit him like a sneaky punch in the gut, something that had never happened in the Atlantis infirmary. With its modern, sleek design—high ceilings, wide hallways, and curved walls artfully decorated in warm colors—this hospital looked nothing like the one in Sateda where his love had worked tirelessly until that last day, when an explosion blew through her as if she had been made of sand. However, the mingled scents of sickness, cleaning products, and human fear were the same. And the sight of the empty gurney stationed along the wall, stopped him in his tracks. He hadn’t had flashbacks like these in a long time.

A couple of steps ahead, John halted and turned to him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” In a well-practiced mental exercise, Ronon pushed the wretched memories aside. He pulled at the stretchy fabric around his neck. “I’m not used to this kind of shirt.”

The small frown between Sheppard’s eyebrows cleared up. “Sorry, buddy, I’m not too crazy about turtlenecks myself. But it’s doing a fine job hiding the marks the entity’s tendrils left on you.”

Ronon couldn’t argue with that logic. Jennifer had said that the marks would heal in time, but their present angry color would attract too much attention on Earth. Even in Atlantis some people (mostly newbies) had acted startled the first time they encountered him after he was released from the infirmary. There, of course, no one dared to say anything to him. Only Sheppard, McKay, Lorne and even Teyla had teased him about it. Every one of them thought of themselves as comedians. Now, despite the great setup, John hadn’t made any new jokes about it—a sure sign that his mind was elsewhere.

They walked through two sets of double-doors before entering a well-lit space. Its center was occupied by two back to back, U-shaped sleek counters facing out to a cluster of rooms, each enclosed by a glass partition and sliding glass doors. While the doors were partly opened, curtains drawn behind the glass panes obscured most of the rooms’ interiors.

Two people sat behind the nearest counter. A woman who was consulting a clipboard while talking on the telephone, and a man working at a computer terminal. Both of them were dressed in smoky blue scrubs, very similar to the ones Jennifer, Carson, and the other medical people often wore in Atlantis. Sheppard got the man’s attention and asked about his brother’s whereabouts. The man—a nurse according to his ID badge—checked their visitor badges against information on his computer screen. After he confirmed their identity, he mentioned a room number and pointed them in the right direction.

“The attending, Dr. Calanda, will be back shortly to talk with you,” he said.

“Thank you,” Sheppard said.

As they looked in the direction the man had told them to go, they both noticed the man in a black suit who sat next to the entrance of Dave’s room.

“Who’s that?” Ronon said.

“It looks like one of your colleagues,” Sheppard said.

“Huh?”

“A bodyguard. This seems excessive, even for Dave,” Sheppard said.

After he introduced himself to the guy, he showed him his hospital-issued badge and military ID. Ronon did the same. Despite the bodyguard’s sturdy build, Ronon wasn’t at all impressed by his relaxed demeanor and decision to wear such constricting clothes while on the job. If needed, he would have no problem taking him down.

Sheppard entered the spacious room. To give him some privacy, Ronon lingered just inside the doorway.

The vigorous man he had met at Patrick Sheppard’s funeral bore little resemblance to the unconscious, gaunt-faced figure lying on the hospital bed surrounded by banks of beeping and swooshing equipment. Dave had a tube down his throat. Intravenous lines snaked out from the nook of his elbow and the top of his hand to a stand hung with multiple plastic bags containing clear liquids. Other types of tubing protruded from underneath the blanket that covered most of Dave’s body. Wire leads attached to his upper torso were visible through the open snaps of his flimsy gown.

On the left side of the bed, a dark-haired woman sat on a thickly padded armchair. She was staring at the wide window. At the squeak of their footsteps, she turned toward them. Her initial frown morphed into a thin smile. In her long burgundy sweater and black trousers, she looked elegant and comfortable as she walked over.

Sheppard appeared not to have noticed her. His eyes were fixed on his brother.

“You must be John.” She held out her hand. “I am Claudia Falcone. David’s fiancé.”

“Hello, Claudia.” Sheppard shook her hand. “I came as soon as I could.”

“I understand. Nancy told me that you work in a very remote base.”

“Yeah, definitely remote,” Sheppard said. He waved his hand in Ronon’s direction. “That’s Ronon Dex. He works with me.”

“Hi,” Ronon said.

She turned her head toward him, her grey eyes were a little red and puffy. “Hello. I wish we could have met under better circumstances.”

“Me too.” Sheppard said.

“I’m glad to see that you are okay. You didn’t answer the last email David sent you about a month ago. He was a little worried,” she said. Her tone was matter of fact, not accusatory.

Sheppard’s face flushed with color. “I’m sorry. We had some … problems at the base with insurgents. It’s classified.”

“Oh, I understand. Is everything okay now?”

“Yup. All cleared up.”

Ronon couldn’t help but roll his eyes at Sheppard’s minimalistic explanation. He didn’t want Claudia to get the wrong impression of Sheppard. He knew that they couldn’t tell her that the man was MIA for twelve days or about the frantic hunt for Teyla, the injuries, and all the other crap that had happened. “He got hurt a couple of times and was laid up.”

Claudia studied Sheppard with concern. “Are you alright?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” he said. “Thanks for sharing that, Ronon.”

“No problem,” Ronon said.

Sheppard stepped to his brother’s bedside. “Claudia, tell me, please—how bad is it?”


	3. Chapter 3

Claudia had been staring out the window—not seeing the scenic view of the cityscape surrounding the harbor— when her fiancé’s enigmatic older brother entered the room with his friend. Out of a sense of obligation and a need for distraction, she had been trying to summon the will to check her email. It didn’t work. The life she had before this happened seemed remote, unreachable, and frankly unimportant. Just a few days before, she had been obsessing about the results of her research team’s most recent experiments and the best approach to reach out to more potential investors for her small biotech firm. Now, she didn’t care. Her rat race, David’s rat race, they all lost their significance when, out of nowhere, death banged at the door.

When she first heard the footsteps, she had expected to see Dr. Calanda or someone in her entourage, hopefully with news about David’s placement on the United Network for Organ Sharing list or about her own test results. Instead it was a man she had never met before, but who she instantly recognized from David’s scattered family photos. The ones she had carefully studied to try to understand the enigma of his broken family. Despite their idiosyncrasies, Claudia was tight with her sisters and parents. They had their arguments. Way too often, doors were slammed and people stomped away with hurt feelings. But the animosity never lingered long enough to truly fester. Either time or mediation cleared the tension, at least until the next disagreement. The epic way Sheppard senior and John had kept away from each other for years was unfathomable. Until she met David, she thought that stuff like that only happened in novels and television shows.

Naturally, John looked a tad older than the most recent pictures Claudia had seen of him. He appeared a little tired, maybe from the trip, but he was further proof that Sheppard men aged like a fine wine. David had told her that the two old photos were taken when John got his commission as an officer in the Air Force. In the affectionate mother and son photo, Claudia noticed the strong resemblance between the handsome young lieutenant and the middle-aged woman, who must have been quite a beauty in her time—the same thick nearly black hair, remarkable hazel eyes, and full mouth. The smiles were different—John’s was crooked and genuine, his mom’s more reserved, maybe even a little forced. Had she known that she was sick already? She died two years later, when David was twenty-one and John twenty-five. In a companion photo obviously taken by their mom, her grown-up boys stood side by side, not touching. While the two had a similar tall build, David favored his father, with the same light brown hair, square chin, and amazing blue eyes.

When they greeted each other, John didn’t act like the self-centered jerk that David had described to her. Stupidly grasping for a conversation starter, she had brought up the issue of the unanswered emails. The words flew out of her mouth before she realized that it might have sounded accusatory. But instead of taking it the wrong way, he had apologized to her. And he had been mildly annoyed at Ronon for mentioning that he had been injured, apparently embarrassed by the personal attention.

Claudia thought about how to answer John’s question. The bottom line first. “David is in critical condition, John. He has acute liver failure. They put him on the UNOS waiting list for a transplant with a status 1 listing.”

“Oh,” John said.

“What does that mean?” Ronon asked.

“His liver is crashing. He needs a new one and doesn’t have much time.” John touched David’s swollen hand—one of the effects of the liver poisoning. “Is he in pain?”

“He was, but not anymore. They had to sedate him when they placed the endotracheal tube to help him breathe,” Claudia said.

John turned to her. “What happened? Nancy didn’t know enough to give me the details. Is it some kind of infection?”

Claudia wished it was. “No, a very powerful mushroom poison is destroying his liver.”

“That’s weird. Dave hated mushroom when we were kids. He threw fits when dad insisted on a ‘no thank you’ bite.”

David had never told her that. Too bad that this wasn’t the kind of situation where she could just pester John for funny stories about David’s childhood. “He still hates mushrooms. He avoids them like the plague.”

“Then how did he eat enough to get poisoned by them?”

“He didn’t.” After all her conversations with the doctors and the police, Claudia hated having to relive once again the events that had led them here, but she owed John a clear explanation. “Four nights ago we were at a cocktail party hosted by one of Dave’s business associates. About an hour into it, Dave whispers in my ear that he’s not feeling well and wants to leave—words that I had never heard him speak before. By the time we get the car back from the valet service, he’s clutching his stomach in pain. A couple of miles down the road, I stopped the car just in time for him to open the door and violently throw up. He insisted that we go home, but I wasn’t buying it. He looked awful, all sweaty and shaky. I took him to the emergency room at our local hospital where he promptly threw up on the waiting room floor. We got very fast service after that.”

In as few words as possible she sketched out their odyssey through the medical world. In the emergency room and after David was admitted, the doctors ran whole bunches of tests on every body fluid imaginable along with abdominal x-rays and an ultrasound. They also asked endless questions about what he had eaten and had drunk in the previous twenty-four hours. The weird thing was that the two of them had pretty much taken the same stuff and she had no symptoms. And all the time, David had horrible cramps and kept on vomiting and running to the bathroom until he was completely drained of energy.

Eventually, the intravenous fluids they gave him seemed to help; by early morning he had stopped puking and having bouts of diarrhea. The initial diagnosis had been gastroenteritis, either bacterial or viral. The doctors decided to keep him under observation and discharge him in the evening or the next morning if all went well. The fact that David had not objected to this plan had been Claudia’s first hint that something might still be wrong. But the doctors said that all his lab results had returned to normal.

He slept most of the day and when he woke up around dinner time, he acted confused. He couldn’t remember why he was in the hospital and he had yelled at her for making him miss a meeting. This behavior was completely out of character. He had never lost his temper at her before and she was positive that he had no meeting scheduled that weekend. That’s when she went over the resident’s head and insisted that the attending order another set of lab tests. This time there was something off with his liver and kidney function tests. He had also started to look a little jaundiced. She skipped telling John about all the phone calls, discussions and arguments that ended up getting David transferred by Medevac ambulance to Johns Hopkins, one of the premier hospitals in the region.

“We’ve been here for three days now,” she said. “Even though they couldn’t find any evidence that he had ingested any type of fungus, ultra-sensitive tests detected traces of alpha-amanitin in his urine. It’s a highly toxic chemical found in certain wild mushrooms. Mushrooms that he didn’t eat, at least, not knowingly.”

“Are you saying that someone slipped him this—this poison? Somebody tried to kill Dave?”

“Yes,” she said. “The police are investigating. Last I heard they had a suspect but they weren’t ready to say anything more. The detective I spoke to didn’t think that there is any more danger, but his boss offered to post a uniformed officer here as a guard. David’s personal assistant, his lawyer, and the hospital administration opted for the professional guys in the suit. A couple of them take turns around the clock.” Claudia had stayed out of that argument. Just as long as there was somebody who knew what they were doing there, she didn’t care who stood in by the door.

John and Ronon exchanged glances. “Don’t say it,” John said.

“I wasn’t going to.” Ronon’s deep voice sounded gravelly. Claudia hadn’t noticed that before.

Before she could ask what they were talking about, Kelly walked in to check on the IV bags. While all the nurses on the floor had been very helpful and efficient, she was Claudia’s favorite. To get out of her way, she and John retreated to the corner of the room furthest away from the bed.

“You know a lot about this medical stuff,” John said.

She had also gotten the impression that he too understood the medical jargon a lot better than most laypeople. Where had he picked up the knowledge? “I’m a quick learner. I work in biomedical research. In my lab, we are developing new anticancer drugs.”

“My … our mother died from cancer,” John said.

“Yes, I know. Your brother and I met at a breast cancer fundraiser. One that he supports very generously.”

“Dave is lucky to have found you,” John said.

At that, Claudia couldn’t hold back her tears. She dug into her pockets for tissues and dabbed at her eyes. It had only taken her a day here to learn to be always prepared for the next surge of emotions. She hadn’t cried this much since her teen years.

“I’m lucky too. He’s a very good man,” she said.

John eyed the large alcove behind them. It held a neatly made daybed, recessed into the wall, a night stand, and it was fitted with a curtain that could be drawn for privacy. One of the many amenities of this VIP room, along with the large flat screen TV (which she had yet to turn on), comfortable arm chairs, closet and drawer storage space, large private bathroom, Wi-Fi, and very loose visitation policy. “Have you been home since it happened?”

“No, I haven’t.” From the time they had stepped through the emergency room doors, her world, her whole existence, had constricted itself to a short radius around David. Unwillingly, he had become the center of a black hole, and she couldn’t (and didn’t want to) escape from its gravitational pull.

But she wasn’t completely alone in this. Nancy visited her daily to keep her company and ensure her supply of fresh clothes and toiletries. The two of them were friends from high school, co-captains of the girls’ tennis team. They had lost touch with each other until three years ago when Claudia moved back to the area and they happened to attend the same alumnae reunion. They played tennis together on a fairly regular basis. Through this friendship, Claudia had heard stories about John even before she met David. Nancy had described her ex as a loyal, caring man and attentive lover, but terrible husband material because of his poor communications skills and secretive job. She had teased Nancy about the poetic justice by which she had ended up with her own secretive job as a director at Homeland Security. Now, Nancy’s very significant other, Grant, was having trouble accepting that she couldn’t tell him much of anything that went on during her work day. Thank goodness that she and David didn’t have that problem to sort through.

Also at various times in the past few days, some of hers and David’s other close friends had stopped by to lend their support. Her mom and dad had offered to drive up from their retirement home in South Carolina, but she told them no. There was nothing they could do at the moment. Then there were all the personal texts, emails, and phone messages from concerned friends and acquaintances that she was well behind in answering. It dawned on her that this was something that she and John had in common.

“Claudia, please, don’t take this the wrong way, but you look … exhausted. Do you want to take a break and, I dunno … take a walk outside? I’ll be here with Dave. I promise to call you the second anything changes,” John said.

She was tempted, very tempted, but only for a moment. The desire to breathe fresh air lost out to the terror that David might slip away if she left him for longer than a bathroom break. “Thanks, but I just can’t …”

“I get it,” he said.

She blew her nose, cringing at how loud it sounded. More tears streamed down, like a river bursting its banks. “I’m sorry. I am not normally a crier.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” he said. After a hesitant tap to her shoulder, he wrapped his arms around her and awkwardly rubbed her back. It felt good to have human contact, to be able to share the burden with someone else who cared for David. Yes, John was definitely not a jerk. She felt vindicated for having teasingly called David an idiot when he had confessed to her that he had accused his brother of coming to their father’s funeral to contest the will.

By the time she had collected herself, a male nurse came in rolling a cart of supplies.

“Mark and I have to take care of some things for Mr. Sheppard. Would you mind stepping outside for a few minutes?” Kelly said. “You could all get some coffee and snacks from the kitchenette down the hall.”

Claudia led John and Ronon to the break room. She showed them the well-stocked cabinets and fridge. She and John agreed that the coffee wasn’t too terrible. Ronon acted as if he had never eaten Oreos, Fig Newtons, and white cheddar popcorn. By unspoken consensus, all three of them avoided the assorted protein shakes, yoghurts, and nutritional bars.

Dr. Calanda intercepted them on their way back to David’s room. Claudia introduced her to John and Ronon. Because she had met an ever revolving parade of them, Claudia couldn’t remember the names of the intern and resident who hovered behind the renowned liver specialist, like disciples following their guru. The young man and woman introduced themselves. Both of them appeared a little distracted by Ronon’s presence. The resident also gave John a mildly inappropriate, but at least discreet, side-glance as they all followed Dr. Calanda into the small room set near the nurse’s station. It was a good place to have private discussions.

“Any news from UNOS?” Claudia asked.

“Sorry, but not yet.” Calanda said. She turned her head to address John. “Because he has fulminant liver failure, your brother has been given the highest priority designation on the UNOS list.”

“Yes, status 1, Claudia mentioned that,” John said. “What are the odds of finding a liver in time to help him?”

“It is hard to say. Being status 1 should shorten the waiting time considerably. But you have to keep in mind that currently in the United States there are over seventeen thousand people on the waiting list for livers, but only about six thousand livers become available annually.” She eyed John carefully, as if to determine how much information he could absorb.

John obviously got the same impression. “Just give it to me straight, please.”

“Your brother has three main factors running against him. One is that his liver failure has been unresponsive to medications and is progressing very rapidly. He is already on respiratory support and dialysis. This means that he doesn’t have much time before his condition degenerates to the point where he would not survive the transplant procedure. He also has a relatively rare blood type which reduces the odds of finding a suitable match. A third problem is that because of his tall build, he needs the donated liver to meet a certain minimum size, further reducing the donor pool size.”

Claudia knew this already, but hearing it again hit her just as bad as the first time. She wasn’t the only one struck by Dave’s dismal odds.  John now wore the devastated look that she had come to recognize in herself the rare times she snuck away from David’s bedside to freshen up in the bathroom.

In a tired motion, John rubbed his hand over his five o’clock shadow. “How much time does he have?”

“We can’t know for sure, but it’s probably less than a week. I’m so sorry, Colonel. We are doing everything we can. My resident is in constant contact with UNOS.”

“Thank you, I appreciate everything you are doing,” he said.

He looked so dejected that Claudia automatically reached over and squeezed his arm, a sort of mini-hug. “Dr. Calanda, do you have the results of my tests?”

“Yes,” she said. “Colonel and Mr. Dex, do you mind giving us a moment? If I could meet you back in Mr. Sheppard’s room, I would be happy to answer any other questions you might have.”

Claudia had heard and read the messages often enough in the past four days: patient privacy, everybody’s privacy was super important around here. “It’s okay, Dr. Calanda. I don’t mind if John and Ronon hear this.”

“Of course, it is your prerogative,” Dr. Calanda said. “Unfortunately, Dr. Falcone, you and your fiancé’s blood samples had a positive reaction in the compatibility test. This is not a good thing. It means that even if we worked around the mismatched blood groups and the size issue, you are not a suitable donor for him. I am so sorry.”

“It’s alright. I knew it was a long shot,” Claudia said. In a frantic rush to understand what was happening to David, she had spent a big chunk of the last two sleepless nights scanning the Internet, reading up on mushroom poisons, liver failure, and liver transplants. She had found a few medical articles about ABO-incompatible living donor liver transplantation and she had latched on to that concept like a lifeline. It had a lower success rate that transplants with organs from blood group matched donors, but people’s lives had been saved by the procedure when there was no better option. David’s condition was crashing so fast that this might be the only way to keep him alive.

Under other circumstances, John’s bewildered expression would have been hilarious. “Claudia … a donor? I thought that donated livers came from dead people. They aren’t like kidneys, where everybody has a spare.”

“That is true. However, unlike kidneys and other organs in the body, livers can regenerate. This makes it possible to remove one of the two lobes of the liver from one willing person and transplant it into another. Living donor liver transplants have been done successfully since the 1980s, with very good outcomes for both donors and recipients,” Dr. Calanda said. “Dr. Falcone had volunteered to donate to her fiancé, but for various reasons it’s not a viable match.”

John didn’t even hesitate a second. “What about me as the donor? Dave and I have the same blood group, O, and we are about the same size.”

Just like that, Claudia felt a resurgence of hope.

When Nancy had offered to contact John about David’s very serious condition, Claudia had readily agreed because he was the only living Sheppard and his family needed to know in case the worst came true. It was only recently, when she had learned about the living donor option that she had realized that John might be the perfect candidate. That was the main, admittedly self-serving, reason she had been so glad when he finally came. It would give her a chance to ask if he would at least consider it.

But when he had euphemistically talked about problems with insurgents and Ronon had mentioned that he had been injured very recently, she realized that she had no right to ask him anything like that. John was clearly in the frontline of a war, defending her country from whom she had no idea, but she suspected that it had nothing to do with Afghanistan or Iraq, or the other things she heard and read about in the media. He risked his life all the time and had huge responsibilities for the safety of those under his command. It’s not as if he could take a couple of months off to recuperate from liver surgery.

His superiors probably wouldn’t even let him do it. Or would they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some parts of John’s back story (including his and Dave's age at the time of their mom's death from breast cancer) are borrowed from Jo Graham’s excellent "Death Game" SGA novel.


	4. Chapter 4

When he volunteered to be a donor for his brother, John had never been so sure of anything before in his life. As part of his pilot and officer training he had learned to make critical decisions in an instant and commit to them wholeheartedly, despite any lingering doubts. In combat, you had no time to carefully weigh all the pros and cons before deciding on the best possible course of action. People’s lives depended on the snap decisions you made. Afterwards, if you survived, you could spend sleepless nights wallowing in doubt and regret. He’d been there, done that countless times.

This was different. It was simple and straight forward, like two plus two equals four. Dave would die without a new liver, John apparently could part with some of his, and the two of them were the same blood type. Ergo, he had no doubts about his offer to be the donor.

He couldn’t do anything to the scum who had tried to kill his brother, but he certainly could and would defeat the bastard’s intent.

Although by the looks of Ronon’s frown, at least one person didn’t necessarily believe that the choice was this clear cut. Scratch that, make it two people. For no reason John could think of, Claudia too looked more worried than relieved. He had expected that his offer would have instantly taken a huge burden off her mind. Maybe she didn’t want to raise her hopes until medical confirmation that he would be a good match for Dave.

Claudia smiled at him. “John, I am immensely grateful that you would even consider being the donor, but you should spend some time thinking about this. It’s a huge decision.”

“Dave doesn’t have time. If I’m a match, I’ll be happy to share my liver with him.” It was the least he could do for his only brother.

Stationed overseas at the time, John hadn’t been there for his mom during her illness. Granted, that hadn’t been entirely his fault. In her letters to him, she had cheerfully glossed over the details of her fast declining health. She had told him not to worry because she was doing well and was getting the most advanced care at one of the best cancer centers in the country. A month after her last letter, he’d received a terse message from Dave telling him of her death and funeral arrangements.

Despite his effort to get back stateside, he’d missed her funeral. One more thing that had infuriated Dave, no matter how often John had tried to explain that he had no choice. At the time, he’d been assigned to a mission critical objective. Another pilot probably could have taken over his role; however, his CO refused to make the adjustments and grant him emergency leave. The fact that this decision was well within the commander’s prerogative hadn’t made him any less of an ass who took every opportunity within the regs to take John down a peg.

John had swallowed his grief to keep up the cool veneer that helped him to survive under his CO’s unforgiving rule. Inwardly though, his heart became hollow as the incomprehensible sunk in. He’d lost the one person in his life who’d loved and supported him without judgment and without his father’s greedy need to mold him in his own image. He’d never again experience the little mothering things she did that had annoyed him endlessly as a teenager but had come to appreciate during the rare times he’d visited her while on leave. The way she’d fuss about properly balanced meals, where tomato sauce didn’t count as a vegetable. Or how new packs of socks and underwear (the brands that he liked) would magically appear on top of his dresser without him having to mention that he'd run out. Everything about her, including her smile and warmth, were gone forever.

When he’d finally had a chance to reach out to Dave, his brother had been so angry about being left to deal with both the loss and the logistics of the funeral that he’d thrown at him their dad’s old maxim: there’s always another choice. That’s all fine and dandy for civilians, but John hadn’t been prepared to go AWOL and risk a court martial. That would have been a dark stain on not only his very essence, but also on their mother’s grave. Mom had been damned proud of his choice to serve; his father, not so much. Guilt ridden, John had let Dave vent himself without voicing the question that that had roiled around in his gut like the worst kind of MRE: why hadn’t Dave contacted him to tell him how really sick their mother was? John would have come back if he’d known the truth.

From that point on, it had been so easy to stay mad at Dave because he was a better target than their deceased mother—the well-meaning woman who had spun the protective web of lies. She had been terminally ill and she still hadn’t wanted to be a burden. Typical. She was the least demanding, selfless person John had ever known, practically invisible to everyone, except her two sons who worshiped the ground she walked on. Was this invisibility one of the reasons their father left her? Once her youthful, breathtaking loveliness had settled into a mature form, she hadn’t remained flashy and sexy enough to maintain his interest. A natural beauty, Mom had never sought out the plastic surgery and other elaborate treatments employed like an arms race by some of the trophy wives in his parents’ social circles.

Only recently, since their father’s funeral, John realized what an ass he’d been not to make amends with his brother sooner. So much wasted time.

Dr. Calenda cleared her throat. “How about we start with the tissue typing and lab screen to determine the Colonel’s potential as a donor?”

“That sounds good,” John said. With her lilting Spanish accent and no-nonsense professional attitude, he liked the petite doctor, even though she refused to call him by his first name like he had suggested when Claudia (or should he say, Dr. Falcone) introduced him to her.

“If you wouldn’t mind following Dr. Steinherdt, she will explain the tests to you and get you started on completing the donor questionnaire. She will also discuss the donation, evaluation, and recovery process.” Calenda looked at him sternly. “Colonel Sheppard, Dr. Falcone is correct. You face a complex decision. The donor procedure involves major abdominal surgery and is associated with potentially serious complications, including very rare cases of liver failure and even death. Full recovery takes several weeks. This is why we will provide you with all the information necessary to make the choice that is right for you.”

“And Dave,” John said.

“After you digest all the information, you might realize that what is right for you may not necessarily be what is right for your brother. There would be no shame in changing your mind,” she said in a softer tone.

John held his mouth shut, but he couldn’t imagine any reason to change his mind and condemn his brother to death. Unlike all the people he could’ve saved but hadn’t—Ford, Brendan, Gaul, Elizabeth, Carson (the original one), Heightmeyer, and the countless others who died under his watch because he had made the wrong decision or the right decision at the wrong time—this life was not going to slip away. Not on his watch.

When John passed Ronon to follow Steinherdt out of the room, his friend grabbed his arm. “Are you sure about this, Sheppard?”

“He’s my brother.”

“Yeah, he is. But don’t you need to talk to O’Neill or Woolsey before you decide?”

John couldn’t resist. “Since when did you become such a stickler for protocol?”

“This is no joke,” Ronon said.

“I know buddy, don’t worry. I’ll talk to the powers that be after I get Calenda’s approval that this is a go.” But, in the back of his mind, the old mantra “better to ask forgiveness than permission” sang like an inane nursery rhyme.

Steinherdt led John to an examination room. While she gave him a mini lecture on the liver donor screening process, Nurse Mark efficiently inserted a syringe in his left arm and drew several vials of blood. Then Mark handed John a plastic cup and pointed him to the washroom down the hall. When he returned, they had him strip off his shirt and undershirt, remove his dog tags, and lay on his back on the exam table for the electrocardiogram—one of several tests that would help them determine his fitness for surgery.

Mark placed soft, sticky electrodes on his chest. At the sight of John’s various scars, he and the doc exchanged curious glances. John had wondered how soon he would have to answer questions about them.

“You have obviously seen quite a bit of action,” Mark said.

“Yup,” John said. “Sorry, I can’t talk about it. It’s all classified.”

“I understand, Colonel,” he said. That standard answer made John smile. Mark might have thought that he understood, but he had no clue.

Stenherdt wasn’t as easily deterred. She palpitated around the area of his most recent injury. “This one is still healing. How long ago did you sustain it?”

“Two weeks. It was just a little more than a flesh wound, the um…weapon that stabbed me missed all major organs. The docs at my base do great work.”

“I am sure that they do. But I will have to speak to Dr. Calenda about it.”

“This is not going to be a problem, is it? This scar is not anywhere near my liver.” Given his line of work, John had gained a sound understanding of anatomy, human and otherwise. “And my brother doesn’t have a better option.”

He had never been so self-conscious about the toll his military career had left on his body. The injuries and the lingering scars were par for the course. The price you paid for being on the front lines, doing your job, and surviving. The scars were souvenirs, reminders of things that had gone wrong and others that had gone right. Until this very minute, he had no regret for this most recent mark. Keller survived, so did Ronon and, as a matter of fact, if he hadn’t stopped the entity many more would have died. He couldn’t have predicted that those tendrils could punch through flesh like that and even if he had, what else could he have done with the little time left before it went totally out of their control? It had been worth it, but the thought that this might block his chance to help his brother… that would hurt more than anything.

“I am not saying that this will be a problem,” she said. “But we must be very thorough in gathering all the relevant medical history when we evaluate a potential donor to ascertain that we will be able to safely perform the operation on the donor and procure a viable liver for the recipient. This is not for me to decide, but I do believe that you have nothing to worry about at this early point in the screening process. Let us gather all the facts first.”

“Okay,” John said. He turned on the charm with a confident smile and with what hopefully was a very honest and earnest expression. “Just so you know, I feel fine and I was almost cleared to return to duty right before I had to come back for my brother.”

“Duly noted, Colonel. Now, please lie on your left side and use your left arm to cushion your head. Like this.” Dr. Steinherdt demonstrated the arm placement. “Good. Please relax and hold still.” John forced himself not to squirm when she squirted cold gel on the top left quadrant of his chest and pressed a wand-like device over the goop. “I am going to move the transducer around to visualize how the chambers in your heart are working.”

At least that part went well. The doctor seemed happy enough with what she saw on the monitor. And why wouldn’t she? John definitely got plenty of cardio work on and off the job.

A little over an hour later, they let him go with his homework: a thick information booklet to read and a lengthy questionnaire to fill out. He tucked the stash of papers under his armpit and walked back to Dave’s room.

Ronon and Claudia were sitting next to each other, apparently in the midst of a comfortable conversation. His normally taciturn friend definitely had a knack for befriending petite, strong-willed, smart women. From the little he had heard about her, John was pretty sure that Melena had been the same type.

He went to Dave’s side. It physically hurt him to see his brother in such a fragile state, hooked up every which way to Sunday to life support equipment. The doctors were keeping him heavily sedated, with his head elevated and a slew of drugs sloshing through his system to try to attack a long list of problems, including the need to decrease the risk of brain swelling, one of the major effects of his failing liver. They had even mentioned the possibility of inserting a bolt-like instrument through Dave’s skull to better monitor the pressure in his cranium. But they weren’t yet sure if the added information was worth the risk of a brain bleed. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

He gently clasped Dave’s forearm and said, “Hang on, Dave. Hang on so we can argue some more about whatever you want.”

“Dr. Calenda said that he is pretty stable right now.” Claudia came over and tenderly caressed Dave’s head.

John was glad to see that she didn’t look as wrecked as she had before. “Good. They’ve put a rush on my blood tests.”

“That’s great,” she said. “Ronon just talked me into going to the cafeteria with him to grab some dinner. Would you like to come with us?”

“No, I’ll stay here with Dave,” he said. “I’ve got to fill out this paperwork and make a phone call.”

He caught Ronon’s almost imperceptible nod. “We’ll bring you something.”

“Thanks, Chewie.” John wasn’t at all hungry, but he had to keep his energy levels up for the surgery. If all things went well with his donor screening process, they might do the transplant in two days.

Instead of the comfortable chair that Claudia had just vacated, John sat at the small table by the other end of the long window. He skimmed through the “What to Expect as a Living Liver Donor” booklet. Steinherdt had done a nice job summarizing most of the same information for him.

He started going through the first couple of pages of the “Living Donor Liver Transplantation Candidate Profile” form and tried not to get too discouraged at the prospect of having to go through seven more pages of questions. Although, at the moment, a few of the questions stumped him.

Are you able to take six to eight weeks off from work?—At least on paper, he should be able to swing it with the thirty days annual paid leave and the unlimited sick leave due to him as an Air Force officer, along with the fact that he hadn’t taken more than a couple of days leave in at least five years. But the idea of being away from Atlantis for such a long time didn’t sit too well with him. While he had absolute confidence in Lorne, he hadn’t been around Woolsey long enough to form an opinion. Of course, it wasn’t just that; he would also miss his team, other friends, and Atlantis itself. Maybe, after he got out of the hospital he could return to Atlantis to finish recovering on desk duty. That would be the best scenario. One of the things to address with O’Neill.

This form was taking longer than expected. It made his paperwork back in Atlantis seem like child’s play. Even the most innocuously worded questions gave him pause.

Who lives with you? If sick, who would help you?—He guessed that they had to be asking if someone would take care of him during the recovery period. If they let him back to Atlantis, the answer would be a resounding Yes. His remote base was populated by highly competent medical personnel and his team would take care of him too, probably to the point of driving him batty. But what if he had to recuperate stateside on Earth? He didn’t have a place to live here.

Or did he? John looked up from the table. His eyes skirted over the reassuring calm patterns on the monitor displays before they rested on his unnaturally still brother. He would have to stay with him. He imagined that even if there was a remote possibility that Dave would be opposed to the idea, Claudia would verbally beat him into submission. Which might be fun to watch. That prospect didn’t seem so bad now as it would force them to reconnect. Talk. Ugh. The price might be very well worth it, especially if it gave him the chance to see his little brother—Mr. Cool and Collected—wrapped around Claudia’s pinkie.

The next question almost made him laugh.

Have you discussed your decision with your family? Have they agreed with your decision?—he checked off “No” for the former and left the later blank. It seemed pretty self-explanatory since a few lines above he’d indicated his single status and it was obvious that his closest living relative was in no condition to talk.

The next one he had no trouble with.

Why do you wish to donate?—He could easily list a whole page of reasons. He wrote the top three in the allocated space: _My brother is going to die without a new liver; I’m his only sibling and his closest living blood relative._ He couldn’t imagine any of his cousins on either side of the family volunteering for this, even if by some sheer stroke of luck one of them met the miniscule odds of being a good match _. I love my brother and want him to live_. What he also thought, but didn’t say, was that he routinely did all kinds of crazy, dangerous things to protect his people. All things considered, doing this for his brother was a lot more rational and less risky. 

The medical part of the questionnaire started in the next page. He skipped filling in the contact information for his primary care physician.

As he looked through the Past Medical History section, he heard a knock on the door. It was the bodyguard, Mason Storp, followed by another well-muscled man who had mighty similar wardrobe tastes.

“Colonel Sheppard, this is my associate Bob Darvies. He has the night shift,” said Storp.

John walked over and shook hands with the new guy. He had a nice firm grip. The way he held himself shouted out military trained—Army Rangers would be John’s guess. Normally he would have exchanged some easy banter, the kind that promoted goodwill between the military branches. Not today. “Do either of you have any news on the investigation?”

“On my way over here, I spoke to my buddy at the Baltimore PD. They’ve got a suspect in custody,” said Darvies. “They’re pretty sure the person was working alone, but need to complete the investigation.”

“Who was he and why did he do it?” asked John.

“She,” said Darvies. “The perp is a woman, a disgruntled former employee. Mid-level manager is what I heard.”

“Presumed perp,” Storp said. John had previously him pegged as an ex-cop.

“Yeah, whatever.” Darvies fished a card out of his jacket pocket and handed it to John. “If you want, here is the detective’s card. He might give you more info, you being the brother and all.”

“Thanks.” John took the card without reading it. Maybe tomorrow he’d have the time and inclination to call him.

The two men excused themselves. Darvies went to his post and Storp left for the night

John resumed working on the form. A whole slew of conditions were listed under the Past Medical History banner. He was supposed to check off the ones he’d had. The only reason that he remembered having had chicken pox was because he gave it to Dave, who had been too little to go to school, three or four years old probably. John also clearly remembered the time, maybe a year later, when Dave had a weird cough, like a donkey braying, which he’d found funny until he’d noticed how worried his mother had been. He was pretty sure that the whooping cough had spared him. But what about the measles and infectious mono (And was that different than just mono? How would anyone get it if it wasn’t infectious?). He guessed no for measles and yes for mono based on same vague memories from freshman year in college.

Moving down the list of minor and major medical disasters, he felt pretty virtuous because despite his many injuries he’d never had an actual blood transfusion. He’d been given saline, all sorts of meds, and the artificial blood that Carson had developed, but never real plasma—that had to be a plus in his favor as a donor. He also never had any of the more serious sounding things on the list like hepatitis, HIV, mitral valve prolapse (whatever that was), and heart disease.

But then, with a heavy, sinking feeling, John realized that there were some pretty serious things in his medical history that were not on the list. The Iratus bug bite, the Wraith feedings, and Carson’s retrovirus and Ella bite fiasco. Could any of those events have done something to his body, to his liver especially, that might harm Dave? He dropped the pen on the table and scrubbed his hand over his face. He was tired and probably not thinking straight. He needed to talk to someone about this stuff. 

He returned to the form and was in the middle of pondering what to write about his past surgeries when Steinherdt knocked on the side of the door and walked in.

John stood up. He hadn’t felt this nervous in a noncombat situation in a very long time.

“Colonel Sheppard, we have the results of your lab tests,” she said. “According to your blood work, you are a viable match for your brother.”

“Good,” John said. This was the first good news he’d heard all day. He felt simultaneously relieved that he could do something to save his brother and terrified at the prospect of going under the knife. In comparison, throwing himself in front of a bullet seemed like a much more natural act.

“This just means that we can proceed with the detailed full donor evaluation that I described to you earlier.”

“Yes, I understand. I started filling out the paperwork. And I’ll call my commanding officer in a few minutes to get the medical information you need,” John said.

“Excellent,” Steinherdt said. “I am going to work with a nurse coordinator to schedule the diagnostic tests and arrange your evaluation appointments with the members of the living donation team. We are trying to pack a two day process into one.”

John glanced back at where his brother lay. “I hope that’s fast enough for Dave.”

“His vital signs and labs indicate that it should be,” she said. “I suggest that you make it an early night tonight because tomorrow’s going to be a long day for you.”

As soon as she left, John went into the bathroom and closed the door. He didn’t want anyone to interrupt his upcoming conversation. O’Neill had given him a direct line to call in case of true emergencies. This probably wasn’t what he had in mind, but it certainly fit the category. He dialed and got automatically transferred to voicemail. He left a very brief message asking to be called back as soon as humanly possible to discuss a personal but important matter. He didn’t give any details. The story was too complicated.

It would be great if he could just call up Beckett or Keller for help in filling out the questionnaire. But there were five more days to go before the next scheduled dial-up with Atlantis. Too late for Dave. So he called Dr. Carolyn Lam, one of the other numbers programmed on speed dial on his Stargate Command-issued cellphone.

She answered the call within a couple of rings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The form that John is filling out is based on one posted on the “What to Expect as a Living Liver Donor” Johns Hopkins website. I am trying to be as medically accurate as possible with the liver transplant part of the story, but I am not a physician and I didn’t consult one for my research.


	5. Chapter 5

Ronon followed Claudia through the hallway as she led them back to the elevators. While they waited for the silver doors to open, he examined the three large framed images hanging on the nearby wall. He hadn’t paid attention to them before. Each depicted a single object: a closed orange flower with a long curved stem; another flower, this one with white petals, opened wide exposing its lush yellow center; and a sprig thick with green pine needles.

“Striking photographs, aren’t they?” Claudia said.

“Yeah,” he said.

“All the elevator lobbies here are decorated with art that’s supposed to be soothing for patients and their families.”

“That’s nice.” He wasn’t just saying that to carry out his part of the conversation. He meant it. The pictures were a good choice for a place of healing. The drab grey walls in the hospital where Melena had worked had no decorations beyond peeling paint and ever-expanding cracks caused by age and later on by bombings. No one had time for repairs. And in the end it didn’t matter. Everyone was too scared, too tired, or too angry to be soothed by anything.

They entered the elevator. He nodded a greeting and Claudia smiled at the elderly couple whose animated conversation their entrance had interrupted. She pressed the button for the Main Level, one level above the ground level where he and Sheppard had entered the hospital.

“You should see the art in the Children’s Center,” she said. “It’s decorated with all sorts of whimsical paintings and sculptures. I went there a couple of times to take a break.”

“Sounds nice. I’ll check it out.” Melena had been the one with an interest in art in their relationship. She would’ve loved to examine every piece of art here almost as much as the medical equipment. His thing had been poetry.

Claudia tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. “I am sorry for babbling like this, I don’t usually talk so much.”

“It’s okay.” To make her smile he added, “One of the guys I work with is a real babbler. You aren’t.”

Once they exited the elevator, he noticed a sunlit area down the corridor to his left. It was filled with tables occupied by people eating and talking. Instead of heading there, Claudia turned into a side corridor. They passed a small eatery that had sandwiches, cookies, and other baked goods displayed in a long glass case. A familiar aroma wafted in the air. Coffee: Rodney’s beverage of choice.

“I thought we could go to the food court for more choices,” Claudia said.

“What’s a food court?” The word “court” made him think of judges, advocates, barristers, and defendants—not food. No other world in Pegasus had a judicial system as structured and fair as Sateda’s. Melena’s older brother had been studying to become a barrister when the first bombing raid had destroyed the university. He had escaped the destruction, but not the culling beams that chased down the fleeing survivors.

“A food court is a place where you can buy food from different vendors and eat it in a shared dining area,” Claudia said. “You don’t have them where you are from?”

“No. At the base we eat in the mess hall.”

“This is probably better than what you would get there, but it’s not a fine restaurant,” she said. “I was thinking of Mexican food. It’s a chain, but it’s pretty good. Is that alright?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t know anything about Mexican food whether or not it was cooked by chains. Whatever _they_ were.

They ended up in a large hall occupied by dozens of square, rectangular, and round tables. Interspersed between the tables were leafy potted plants, practically small trees. A wall of tall windows overlooked a grassy space that separated this building from the next red-bricked one. Along two walls there were four food shops.

Claudia pointed to her left and said, “There’s Italian over there at Noble Roman’s, if you rather have that.”

“No, this is fine.” Given what Sheppard planned to do, they would be staying here long enough for Ronon to try out all these places.

He followed her lead as she went through the line to order her meal. He studied the pictures of the various dishes shown on the bright menu billboard hung above the black counter top. A scrawny young man prepared Claudia’s selection. It was called Baja Bowl with Fresh Line Caught Wahoo, some sort of grilled white fish mixed with rice, beans, and vegetables. It looked tasty enough, but he avoided fish. He’d caught, scaled, gutted, and eaten (often raw) way too much of it during his seven years as a Runner. Even the smell of fish brought back bad memories.

He opted for something called Diablo Burrito filled with savory pork carnitas, cheese, rice, and beans. He liked the sound of the word Diablo and the picture of the dish reminded him of _gardras—_ a spicy meat and crispy vegetable concoction wrapped in soft grilled flat bread—his favorite Satedan street food. He used to buy it when he attended university before everything went to hell. The delicious aroma wafting from nearby food carts had enticed students out of the library at lunch time. He’d met Melena while standing in line at one of those carts.

Despite the many years that had passed, thoughts about Melena continued to stab away at his heart. Back in Atlantis, life and death situations kept him so busy that he easily managed to sweep these bitter-sweet memories side. Here on Earth, reminders of her resurfaced at the weirdest times. Through the pain they brought back, he cherished these fragments of their lost life together. Since he’d failed to save her, all he could do now was carry her within him.

“Let me,” Claudia gestured at his tray.

It took a moment for Ronon to register that she was offering to pay for his food. “Thanks. I’ll get it next time.” He had plenty of local coin and paper bills in the SGC-issued leather wallet that also held a fake driver’s license. He paid close attention to how Claudia made the transaction so that he would be able to duplicate it. He didn’t want to stick out too much.

After they both grabbed paper napkins and plastic utensils, they navigated through the cluster of tables. Most were empty, either too soon or too late for the regular dinner hour. Ronon picked a table by a window. Claudia sat facing the view and he sat opposite her to keep an eye on the people milling around.

They ate and drank in silence for a short while before Claudia restarted the conversation.

“How long have you known John?”

The answer was easy because Atlantis kept to the same calendar as SGC. “About three and a half years. He’s a good commander and friend.”

She waited, clearly expecting him to provide some details. Instead of obliging, he smiled at her and took another big bite of food. It tasted pretty good.

“Look, I know that what you do is top secret, but can you tell me anything about how you ended up working with him?”

“He and his people helped me get away from a nasty bunch,” he said.

“Was it the same insurgents that recently attacked your base?”

“No, a different group.”

“Wow, there are a lot of hostile factions in your neck of the woods,” she said.

“Yeah,” He read the concern in her face. “Don’t worry. We can handle them.”

“I can’t imagine where you are stationed. You can relax though; I won’t press you for any more information.”

He shrugged. “Sorry that I can’t tell you anything else.”

Back at Cheyenne Mountain, various humorless people had reminded Ronon repeatedly of all the things that mustn’t be disclosed to people on Earth. It bugged him that their governments were keeping their populations ignorant of the not surprising but still mind-blowing fact that they were not alone in the universe. This keep-the-masses-ignorant policy might prevent panic and preserve stability in the short term, but in the long-term, it was selfish and dangerous, especially because some of the intelligent life out there wanted to conquer or exterminate humans. He had a hunch that if politics worked here in any way close to how it had in Sateda, the politicians would soon regret this decision. In the meantime, he was stuck with the dishonorable task of having to lie to this intelligent and likable woman.

“I understand,” she said.

For a while, they ate quietly. To try to replicate the fieriness he enjoyed, he tested various combinations of the three sauces the server had said were spicy. The heat on his tongue and lips was right, but the degree of smokiness didn’t quite match that of _gardras_.

Claudia sat back watching him with an amused expression. “Is it finally spicy enough for you?”

His mouth full, Ronon made a noise of approval.

“I’m glad you like it,” she said. “You know by your accent, I can’t tell that you are not from America. When did you learn to speak English so fluently?”

Ronon took his time chewing the bite of burrito he had shoved into his mouth. Even if he were allowed to speak about it, he didn’t know how to explain the Stargate’s ability to translate languages. It still seemed like magic to him despite all the science gobbledy gook that Rodney spouted whenever the subject came up. “When I joined Sheppard’s group. I’ve a knack for languages.”

“You’re lucky,” she said. “I studied Spanish in high school and college. I even did a study abroad semester in Bolivia. Despite all that, I definitely don’t sound like a native.”

To avoid any more lies, Ronon decided not to ask her to explain anything of what she said. It was time to turn the focus of the conversation to her. “Where did you meet Dave?”

She launched into a story which sounded interesting, but made many references to things he knew nothing about. He did catch that she was a scientist, not a medical doctor, who was working on cures for various types of cancer. He knew about that. Melena had treated cancer patients, and she had talked about how little they could do for most of them.

As he ate, listened, and talked, he tracked the activity in the large room. Individuals and small groups of people had come and some had gone. Those who wore lab coats and scrubs obviously worked at the hospitals. The others in civilian clothes were a mixture of office workers and visitors. He had automatically sorted most of them into one of those categories.

One person didn’t quite fit his assessment.

The blonde woman had arrived a quarter hour after the two of them had sat down to eat their meal. She wore a lab coat over dark grey trousers. What struck him as strange were her very high, sharp heeled, pointy shoes. They looked dainty and deadly at the same time. The women in Atlantis didn’t use such impractical footwear. Since he didn’t know what to expect on Earth, he’d observed the other people in the hospital. In his assessment, those who wore such footwear were not health care workers.

She had a magazine tucked under her arm and carried a tray loaded with a bowl, probably soup, and a steamy cup, maybe tea, from the other vendor that sold a variety of rice dishes. After she sat at three tables away from them, she spent a tremendous amount of time stirring her soup before she began to eat. Whenever he glanced in her direction, she took another spoonful. Otherwise she appeared engrossed in reading, or rather, pretending to read her magazine while she sneaked looks at them. Besides her potentially dangerous shoes, she didn’t look armed.

His suspicion that she was watching them got confirmed when she sauntered over to their table.

She stood by Claudia’s side and said, “Dr. Falcone, what is the latest news on Mr. Sheppard’s status on the donor list?”

“Excuse me, who are you?” Claudia said.

“I am Ivanna Petrovich with WBFF Fox Baltimore. Would you mind answering a couple of questions?”

“Yes, I would mind,” Claudia said.

“Please,” Ivanna said. “We are working on a story on the plight of people waiting on the liver transplant list.”

“Good for you,” Claudia said in a tone that oozed contempt. It reminded Ronon of Rodney talking to one of his subordinates.

Ronon didn’t know if he should step in. Ivanna wasn’t doing anything physically threatening, but clearly Claudia didn’t want to talk to her.

Ivanna continued with the questions. “Is it true that Mr. Sheppard has been advanced to the top of the UNOS list?”

“What? Where did you hear that?”

“A reliable source said that his transplant is imminent.”

“No comment,” Claudia said.

“Has Sheppard Industries made a large donation to Johns Hopkins to move things along?”

“No. Are you really a reporter? If you had done any research you would know that the hospital has no say on how UNOS allocates organs.”

“Has a donor been procured through the black market organ trade?”

“How dare you?” Claudia took her cell phone out of a pocket of her sweater. “Leave us alone or I’ll call hospital security to have you removed from the premises.”

"The cafeteria is a public space,” said Ivanna.

“Maybe so, but I don’t want to talk to you. And is that a fake ID and stolen lab coat?” Claudia said.

“No … of course not,” Ivanna said.

Ronon rose from his seat and folded his arm across his chest. “Please go.”

Ivanna took one step back. He couldn’t tell if she felt more threatened by him or by Claudia dialing her phone.

“Fine.” Ivanna let out in an exasperated huff. She walked out of the food court without retrieving her magazine or clearing her food tray.

“Damned reporters,” Claudia said under her breath. “If I had more energy, I would call security on her.”

She looked so worried that Ronon didn’t want to bother her with questions about what just happened. He would ask Sheppard later.

They stayed a few more minutes while he finished his food and she half-heartedly took in a few more bites. She offered to tidy up their table while he returned to the _Baja Fresh_ counter to buy food for Sheppard.

Ronon picked a taco combo with chicken and steak. The first was similar to turkey, he had heard often enough, and the second was something that Rodney and Sheppard sometimes waxed poetically about when they got into a discussion about which Earth dishes they missed the most. This reminiscing happened most often during long away missions when they were stuck with eating MREs.

On their walk back to Dave’s room, Ronon paid closer attention to the wall art.

\----------------------------------- 

Ronon shook hands with Bob, the new body guard posted at the door. With an attitude that screamed of military training, this one seemed to be a better choice than the other, softer-looking guy.

When he and Claudia walked into Dave’s room, Sheppard looked up from the paper he’d been writing on. He had a grin on his face. “The blood test came back. I’m a match for Dave.”

“That’s wonderful news,” Claudia said.

“Great,” Ronon said. “Come on. I left your food in the break room.”

“I have to finish this paperwork,” Sheppard said.

“You can do it there.” Ronon swept up the pile of papers from the small table.

“Hey, don’t mess up my forms,” Sheppard said.

“I’m just holding them for you,” Ronon said.

“Go eat, John. I’ll stay with Dave,” Claudia sat on the chair by the bed, worry lines back on her forehead.

“Fine.” Sheppard walked by Ronon and snatched back his papers. “Did Teyla put you up to this?”

“This what?” Ronon followed him into the hallway.

“This mothering.”

“I’m not mothering.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, Teyla said it was babysitting.”

Sheppard looked at him in dismay. “She didn’t.”

“She did,” Ronon said.

They had the break room all to themselves. Ronon let Sheppard chow down and scribble on the papers for a while before he asked, “What did O’Neill say?”

“He wasn’t there,” Sheppard said. “I left him a message. I want his advice about how to approach Landry.”

“Landry? I thought O’Neill was your military boss.” Despite being around them for three years, the workings of the power triangle between Mr. Woolsey, the IOA, and the SGC continued to mystify Ronon.

“I reported to him when he was in charge of Stargate Command, but he’s moved up the chain of command to lead Homeworld Security. As head of SGC, General Landry is my boss.”

“That sucks. Is he going to give you trouble?”

“He better not.” For a moment, Sheppard had his dark-eyed, set-jaw, pre-suicide mission look. The next instant the hardness mellowed away as he reverently picked up his second taco and chomped on it. A few more contemplative bites later, Sheppard said, “I had a chat with Dr. Lam. Or rather she talked my ear off after I explained the situation.”

“And?”

“She wasn’t too happy with the idea of me having major surgery so soon after … well, you know.”

Ronon read his smug face. “You talked her into it anyway, didn’t you?”

“It wasn’t that hard. I am almost back to one-hundred percent and she gets it that I am Dave’s only option.”

“But would Dave want you to risk yourself for him?”

Sheppard frowned at him as if he hadn’t considered that. Then he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s my choice and the donor surgery isn’t that risky.”

Ronon went over to open the door. He looked up and down the hallway. No one around. He shut the door, returned to his chair, and slid it a little closer to Sheppard.

“A little paranoid?” Sheppard said.

“I’m filling in for McKay.”

Sheppard peered at the lights recessed in the ceiling. “There might be secret listening devices hidden anywhere.”

“You’re full of it.” Ronon continued, speaking more softly. “Seriously now, what about having your brother brought over to Keller’s care with the anc … the tech she has?” The thought had been churning in his head for a while. It seemed so obvious.

“That’s a good idea, but SGC and the IOA would never allow it.”

“Why?”

“Many reasons,” Sheppard said. “For starters, Dave is too much in the public eye to mysteriously disappear from his death bed and reappear later back to full health. The media would be all over it.”

“Media?”

“Reporters, journalists, people who investigate stories about what’s going on and report them to the public on TV, newspapers, and the internet.”

“Oh, like the woman at the food court who was bugging Claudia with questions.”

“When? What happened?”

Ronon told Sheppard the story while he ate. Someone who didn’t know him well might have thought that he had a very hearty appetite. Ronon could tell that he was just forcing himself to strengthen his body for the surgery.

“Claudia certainly handled it more calmly than I would’ve,” Sheppard said as he balled up his paper napkin and plopped it on the now empty plate.

“I like her,” Ronon said.

“Me too. I wish we could have met under better circumstances.”

“Yeah.” Ronon didn’t know what else to say.

“Darvies, the night-shift bodyguard, said that the cops might have found the person who poisoned Dave, a woman who works for him,” Sheppard said.

“Why did she do it?”

“It’s not clear yet. She might have been pissed off about work.”

“That’s a crazy reason to kill.”

“I don’t get it either.” With angry but controlled moves, Sheppard swept up and chucked his trash. “Dave and I had our differences as brothers, but I’ve only heard good things about his management of dad’s company.”

When they returned to Dave’s room, Sheppard pulled Claudia aside to ask about the reporter and to talk about what the cops had found out. As they started naming unfamiliar people and events, Ronon lost the trend of the discussion. He switched his attention to the unconscious Dave and the displays on the machines that were keeping him alive. While Ronon barely knew the guy, the fact that he was Sheppard’s kin made him feel somewhat like he was sitting vigil by an injured team mate. He didn’t like the helpless feeling.

His mind kept on circling around what might have driven the would-be killer. Based on his team movie night-acquired education about Sheppard’s world, the most likely possibilities were craziness, money, and jealousy. One thing for sure, whatever the motive, this hadn’t been a spur of the moment decision. While poison was a coward’s weapon, its use required planning and knowledge.

An hour later, with a few not-so-subtle promptings from both Ronon and Claudia, Sheppard admitted that he needed to get some real rest.

The same driver they had before picked them up. The ride to the hotel was so short that Ronon didn’t have much of a chance to study the layout of the night city. The brightly lit buildings struck him as a beacon for any Wraith in the vicinity to come to their favored type of food court: one well stocked with humans. He kept forgetting that they were galaxies away from their feeding grounds.

 ---------------------------------

Along with their room cards, the hotel clerk handed Sheppard an envelope. “A fax came in for you, sir.”

“Great. Thank you.” Sheppard said.

“Expecting something?” Ronon said.

“Dr. Lam sent me forms to fill out.”

“Your people are too much into paperwork.”

“Yeah, unfortunately it’s not just Woolsey’s thing.”

Instead of taking the nearest elevator up to their floor, Sheppard walked to the other side of the fancy lobby and went up an escalator.

“Where are we going?” Ronon asked.

“I want to show you the Fitness Center, in case you get restless.” Sheppard said.

The Center held an impressive number of shiny exercise machines, each with its own TV monitor and window view, and several stations with free weights and other, mysterious devices. A couple of fit young women were talking as they worked on neighboring machines that mimicked stair climbing. They acted as if they were unaware of the appreciative looks sent their way by a middle-aged, portly man who was sponging off his sweaty neck and face.

Sheppard led him to another type of machine, a small version of the mobile walkways Ronon had first seen at the civilian airport in Colorado.

“This is a treadmill. You can walk or run on it,” Sheppard said.

“I like to run outside,” Ronon said.

“I know you do, buddy, but there aren’t many places to run outside around here and you can’t run in the hallways of the hotel. This is the next best thing and you can watch football while working up a sweat.” Sheppard cast a longing look at the machine.

“Don’t even think it.” Ronon felt sorry for him. Sheppard hadn’t been allowed to work out in ages and now he’d have to wait even longer.

“Yes, mother.”

A short while later, Ronon dumped his duffle bag on the floor of his room and pulled off his boots, socks, and constricting shirt. He was puzzled by the number and assorted shapes of all the pillows piled up on the huge bed. Did people here have some weird kinks? Probably not, given the stuffy feel he got about this place. But after Sheppard got out of the shower, he would ask him anyway just to watch him get embarrassed.

In the spacious living room of their two-bedroom suite, Ronon went through a fast-paced set of Satedan warrior forms. Katas, Miko called them. Next, he did a bunch of one-handed pushups. A couple of newbie Marines had shown him how to do them, foolishly thinking they could out do him in something. He was in the middle of the second set when he heard the buzzing of a nearby cell phone. It wasn’t his.

He located the noise to a pocket of Sheppard’s jacket left slung over the back of a plush armchair. He plucked it out. The display didn’t identify the caller. Hopefully, it was O’Neill. He brought the phone over to Sheppard’s door and knocked on the frame. From the sound of the running water, it was clear that the guy was still in the shower. Ronon pressed the talk button.

Before he had a chance to say anything General Landry’s voice came through. “Sheppard, Carolyn just gave me an earful about your family emergency. I’m sorry for your brother but …”

“General, this is Ronon. Sheppard is in the shower.”

Landry didn’t miss a beat. “Alright, Ronon. What’s your take on this living liver transplant donor thing?”

For his friend’s sake, Ronon tried his best to sound respectful. “Sheppard’s brother, Dave, was poisoned and needs a liver transplant within days or he’ll die. No big surprise that as soon as he found out it was possible, Sheppard decided to donate a chunk of his liver to save his brother’s life.”

“Yes, of course. As directed by the DOD, the Air Force is normally fully supportive of personnel’s well-informed, non-coerced decisions to participate in organ donation. The concern is that Sheppard has already been on sick leave for two weeks. This would set back his return to active duty by several more weeks.”

Channeling Teyla, Ronon took a deep breath to stop himself from spewing words that he might regret. “The chance to save his brother’s life is the only thing that Sheppard wants more than returning to duty.”

“He told Carolyn that he would retire from the Air Force if he doesn’t get sign-off for this.”

“I’m not surprised. What else would you expect him to do?”

“I understand the strong pull of family ties,” Landry said. “However—and I can’t believe I am actually saying this—Sheppard could be considered to be too valuable to the Stargate program to have him undergo a risky elective surgery and be out for an extended period to recuperate, with a chance that he might not regain world-wide qualification.”

“Since you’re so worried about Sheppard’s health, how about you use Ancient tech or a healing device to help?”

“I am sorry, Ronon, but we absolutely cannot heal Dave Sheppard. The man is a prominent figure. His poisoning has been all over the news. A miraculous return to health would send flares up for the media to sniff out any hint of a clue. This could blow the whole Stargate program out in the open.”

Ronon stopped himself from blurting out that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea. “I know. That’s what Sheppard said. But what if you use it on Sheppard so he’s in better shape for the surgery or to help him recover from it faster?”

There was a little lag time before Landry said, “Actually that may be a possibility. Let me think about who is available … Tell Sheppard to be ready for transport to the Odyssey in twenty-five minutes. You too.” Landry ended the call just as abruptly as he had started it.

Ronon stared at the phone in his hand, amazed at what he had managed to put into motion without his usual weapons: his muscles and his blaster. The nervous energy he’d built up during the verbal sparring drained away. He slipped the phone back in Sheppard’s jacket and went to the mini bar to get a beer.

Several swigs and a couple of minutes later, he heard Sheppard get out of the bathroom.

He walked over to the door frame and peeked in. Sheppard was rummaging through his duffel bag. He looked funny wearing the thick white bathrobe provided by the hotel.

“What’s world-wide qualification?”

“It’s Air Force speak,” Sheppard said, distracted. “It means that you are physically and mentally qualified to be deployed or stationed anywhere.”

“They should call it universe-wide.”

“Yeah, right. Hey … where did you hear it?”

“Landry. He just called you.” Ronon tossed him the phone. “You need to get dressed quickly. He is having us beamed back to the Mountain in twenty.”

“Crap.”

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad.”

Or so he hoped because, besides their personal loss of the man’s friendship, the people in Atlantis and Pegasus would suffer if Sheppard went to plan B and resigned for his brother’s sake.


End file.
